Maulana Bhashani was popularly known by the honorary title Mozlum Jananeta[b] for his lifelong stance advocating for the poor.

Bhashani also differed with Suhrawardy when the latter as Prime Minister of Pakistan decided to join the US-led defence pacts CENTO and SEATO.

[10] American journalist Dan Coggin, writing for Time, credited Bhashani, "as much as any one man", for instigating the 1969 Mass uprising in East Pakistan that culminated in the collapse of the Ayub Khan regime.

[12] According to lay author S. Akhtar Ehtisham, Bhashani's decision to boycott the 1970 Pakistan general elections effectively led to the electoral landslide by his erstwhile opponent Mujibur Rahman.

[13] Bhashani was born Mohammad Abdul Hamid Khan at Dhangara, a village in the Sirajganj mahakuma (lit.

His surname Khan and title hajji, bestowed upon Muslims who had performed the Hajj pilgrimage, suggest that he garnered considerable respect in his community; he died young, aged around 36 or 37.

[14] Bhashani, still a child aged about 8 to 10, lost the remainder of his family, including his grandmother, in the Sirajganj cholera epidemic of 1894–1895.

[18] An orphaned Bhashani caught the attention of Syed Nasir ud-din Baghdadi, an Assam-based pir (lit.

[19] The Goalpara and Dhubri regions, both situated on the braided river Brahmaputra and would later be the scene of Bhashani's youthful political activism, constitute an interface between Bengal and Assam provinces with a Bangla-speaking Muslim majority population.

After returning from Deoband in 1909, Bhashani took work as a master at a primary school at Kagmaree in Tangail, a place across the river Jamuna from Sirajganj.

Influenced by a youth from Brahmanbaria, whom he met during his visit to Kolkata shortly after his return from Deoband, Bhashani briefly joined one of the extremist anti-British organizations in Bengal.

His first meeting with Chittaranjan Das, a prominent Indian National Congress leader, in October 1917 in Mymensingh inspired him to join direct politics.

The British rulers adopted a different and more favorable land system for Assam, attracting peasants from Bengal seeking escape from their oppressive zamindars.

By the time Bhashani arrived in Assam, migrant peasants were experiencing deprivation and persecution by the native Assamese.

Already popular among them, he organized a migrant farmers convention in 1924 at Bhasan Char, a braid bar on the river Brahmaputra, in Dhubri district.

Held on Kauakhola Maidan, a freshly harvested paddy field beside the river Jamuna, the 3-day-long event attracted about 350,000 peasants.

Inaugurated by Shaheed Suhrawardy, a Kolkata-based Muslim League leader, the convention brought Bhasani nationwide fame.

[27] The Muslim League government both in the centre and in the province of East Pakistan lost considerable popularity after the Language Movement of 1952.

During the Kagmaree Conference of Awami League held on 7–8 February 1957, Bhashani left the West Pakistani authority which had acted negatively against East Pakistan.

According to Ehtisham, Bhashani played a crucial role in the opposition's decision to nominate Fatima Jinnah as a candidate in the 1965 Pakistani presidential election, instead of Azam Khan.

Fatima Jinnah was initially scornful of an opposition attempt to nominate her, however on Bhashani's personal intervention, she agreed to be their joint candidate.

[35] American journalist Dan Coggin, writing for Time, credited Bhashani, "as much as any one man", for instigating the 1969 Mass uprising in East Pakistan that culminated in the collapse of the Ayub Khan regime.

[36] Bhashani, with his National Awami party,[37] had organised an International Kisan conference from 23 to 25 March 1970 in Toba Tek Singh District.

[41] The progressive forces quickly gathered around him and strengthened the National Awami Party with Kazi Zafar Ahmed as its General Secretary.

[43] He also warned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman against the ever-rising corruption and political chaos in his own government happening unbeknownst to him.

In May 1976 he led a massive Long March demanding the demolition of the Farakka Barrage constructed by India to divert the flow of the Ganges waters inside its territory, triggering the drying up of river Padma and desertification of Bangladesh.

[46] Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life from all over the country gathered in Rajshahi to participate in the Long March.

[50] Bhashani's Farakka Long March was the first popular movement against India by Bangladeshi people who demanded a rightful distribution of the Ganges' water.

Soon opposition movements started and a political party named Awami Muslim League was founded with Bhashani as one of the central figures.

His third wife, Hamida Khanom (1918–1964), was the daughter of Qasimuddin Sarkar, the Zamindar of Kanchanpur affiliated with the peasant's movement in Bogra.